The Charles Dickens Letters Project
To CHARLES MANBY,1 12 JULY 1869
Text from facsimile in Raab Collection online catalogue, May 2020.
GAD’S HILL PLACE,
HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT.
Monday Twelfth July, 1869
My Dear Manby
I am cordially obliged to you, both for your note and its enclosure. The speech of Mr Bidder2 is like everything he does: — the soundest of sound sense, tersely expressed and with a noble absence of all flourish or pretence. I am proud of his acquaintance with Captain Cuttle’s watch;3 and if you will tell him so, when you have an opportunity, I shall be still more obliged to you.
My daughter4 and her aunt5 unite in the kindest remembrance to Mrs Manby6 and to you. We are all in unimpeachable condition, and just beginning to be warm.
Faithfully Yours always
CHARLES DICKENS
Charles Manby Esquire
- 1. Charles Manby (1804-84; Dictionary of National Biography), Secretary to the Institution of Civil Engineers 1839-1856. For many years he was involved with the management of the Adelphi and Haymarket Theatres; CD occasionally wrote to him in connection with theatrical business, including the staging of performances and requests for tickets. See, for example, Pilgrim Letters 5, pp. 469, 470, and Letters 6, pp. 133, 268, 271, 603.
- 2. George Parker Bidder (1806-78; Dictionary of National Biography), civil engineer, architect, and calculating prodigy. Worked with Robert Stephenson on the London and Birmingham Railway, and worked on the construction of railways in England, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, and India. He was one of the founders of the Electric Telegraph Company in 1845-6, and was involved with the development of submarine telegraph facilities. His fascination with the dynamics of moving water led him to analyse issues of tidal scour on coasts and estuaries. He demonstrated a clear grasp of technical and financial aspects of a problem, and his works were characterized by simplicity and economy. See Charles Manby’s Memoir of Bidder, in Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers 57 (1879): 294–309.
- 3. In a discussion of February 1868 at the Institution of Civil Engineers on fresh-water floods of rivers, Bidder argued that a formula could not be developed to predict the flood-producing capabilities of any district; the minutes recorded his conclusion that “instead of depending upon formulæ they had better depend upon patient, quiet, and observant inquiry, especially when they had to deal with a formula in which the coefficient varied from 5 to 2. Such a formula as that was something like Captain Cuttle’s watch, which, if it was set forward one hour in the morning, and was put back half an hour at night, would give unqualified satisfaction” (Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers 27 [1868]: 249. Bidder’s analysis echoes Captain Cuttle’s observation about his watch to Walter Gay: “Put it back half an hour every morning, and about another quarter towards the arternoon, and it’s a watch that’ll do you credit” (Dombey and Son chap. 19).
- 4. CD’s daughter Mary (“Mamie”; 1838-96).
- 5. CD's sister-in-law Georgina Hogarth (1827-1917).
- 6. Harriet Manby (1818-99; née Willard), second wife of Charles Manby; they married in 1858.